


King Gary

by LokiOfSassgaard



Category: The World's End (2013)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-25
Updated: 2013-11-25
Packaged: 2018-05-28 01:09:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6308116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokiOfSassgaard/pseuds/LokiOfSassgaard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It never got better than that night. But some days are even worse than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	King Gary

It was Gary’s ex-girlfriend who found him.

Gary hadn’t woken up that morning with the thought to take his own life; it was something that just happened. Not out of nowhere, like the sort of repressed memory that suddenly blindsides you as you’re doing the washing up one Thursday evening. It was a thought that had been lurking around the corners of his thoughts for a while, ever-present, if not quiet. Maybe if he timed it just right, he could step in front of that lorry before the driver could hit the breaks. The tower block he was squatting in had a high roof; a fall from there would surely kill a person.

Always thoughts that vanished almost as quickly as they surfaced, but very present all the same.

As he walked the six streets over to the dole offices, it was with the accompaniment those familiar thoughts, interspersed with the random flickering between wondering if Noodle would give him a front and whether or not he might be able to talk Amber into a quick shag while he was there. The answer was always no, but it never hurt to keep trying.

He came to the dole offices, already feeling his mood lighten. He liked to think he was becoming a regular, welcome sight to those halls; something of a mascot, brightening the day of the poor sods stuck working there. He could practically feel their smiles as he walked through the doors, automatically taking the first left to go sign back on. Worry not, for the drear of the day shall be lifted now that Gary King has made his bi-weekly visit to these hallowed and most sacred of halls. He wasn’t thinking of Somerfield’s at all as he took his position in the queue. That chapter of his life was well behind him, and it was now time to start the next great adventure, in the form of government benefits for the unemployed masses.

“How the fuck do you lose a job as a trolley boy?”

It was not the cheerful greeting Gary had expected. He took the smallest of steps backwards and raised one hand up, index finger extended.

“I don’t think how is so important. What really matters is that I did,” he said, punctuating it with an exaggerated shrug.

The young woman behind the desk had to have been at least half Gary’s age, but she’d already mastered a vaguely-hostile, no-bullshit stare, which she levelled at Gary with the force of an electric drill.

“Gary, this is the third time you’ve been in here this month. How many more times is it going to be?” she asked doggedly.

Gary thought about that for a long moment. “D’you mean just this month, or altogether?” he asked.

The adviser’s stare did the exact opposite of abating, and even though she looked away from him to look at her computer, she still managed to focus no end of anger and irritation on Gary.

“Gary, we can’t help you if you’re going to keep doing this,” she said finally.

Gary shrugged indifferently. “That’s all right. I’ll just take the money, then.”

The adviser looked up at him with an added amount of disbelief in her already-hostile stare. Gary just smiled benignly at her until his mind caught up with what she’d said, and his smile fell in an instant.

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry, Gary,” the adviser said, her voice dripping in false sincerity. “But this is where I have to say good luck to you.”

Gary was caught between sneering and gaping at her. Unsure which to settle on, he turned and walked out instead. As he walked the six streets back home, Gary tried to determine where he’d gone wrong. The only thing he could figure was that his only mistake had been trying to sign on in the first place. He should have gone in at a different time and tried to talk to someone — anyone — else. Obviously, the adviser he’d seen had been having a bad day, and took all of her frustrations out on Gary.

Typical.

As he rounded the corner to the council estate, Gary came to a group of young teens who frequently gathered at that spot on the pavement to smoke and chat and do whatever it was modern teenagers did. The one sat on the low wall held an over-sized comic book in his hands, so it must have been Wednesday. Gary grinned widely at the sight and nodded sagely.

“2000AD, huh?” he asked.

Two of the teens looked up at him blandly. It was all the encouragement Gary needed.

“Yep, I read that one every week, too,” he went on, undaunted. “Good old Nikolai Dante. You can never go wrong with him.” He bobbed his head, not quite nodding, but still in a more-or-less positive way.

The teen holding the comic shook his head with a look bordered on disbelief and disgust.

“Nikolai Dante ended over a year ago,” he said. “Where the hell have you been, granddad?”

“Hey,” Gary protested. “I probably don’t even have any children. So if that’s the case, how can I be a granddad, huh? It doesn’t make any sense.”

The remaining two teens were staring at him as well. “What the fuck?” one of them wondered aloud.

“And what do you mean, Nikolai Dante’s ended? Of course it hasn’t.” Gary reached out to tilt the comic back so he could see the page, only to have it snatched away before he could see anything on the page.

“Hey, hands off!” the kid shouted, jerking away quickly.

“Nah, you just probably haven’t got to it yet,” Gary insisted. “It may be at the back this week. Who knows what goes through those guys’ heads, am I right?”

He laughed disarmingly as he reached out for the comic again, only for it to be snatched away again.

“What the fuck are you? Some kind of paedo?” one of the other teens demanded.

Gary scoffed incredulously. “What? What, no! Why would you…?”

The four of them were all on their feet, moving toward him menacingly, slowly fanning out to surround him. The tallest of the four cracked his knuckles threateningly, the sound of it snapping Gary to a new alertness. He stepped backwards from the group of teens, holding both hands in front of him like a shield.

“Hey, it was— it was nothing,” he said, taking another step back. One of them, he could probably handle. He might even have been able to take on two. But four well and truly out-numbered him, and even Gary knew it.

The teens stalked closer, backing Gary farther and farther down the pavement. He stepped off the side, stumbling down and barely avoiding falling on his arse in the road.

“Why don’t we just—oh my god, what is that?” Gary pointed off behind the kids as he shouted.

He was so surprised when they all turned round to look that for a moment, he forgot to run. Instead, he laughed, alerting their attention and murderous looks to him once more. With a sharp jolt, Gary turned round and ran down the pavement. The teens followed him until he rounded a corner and jumped over a hedgerow into a muddy patch that was passing as someone’s front garden. Picking himself back up again, Gary looked round and smiled to himself as he watched the teens retreat. Presumably to beat up someone else.

The house was not a random selection on Gary’s part, and dusting himself off, he walked purposefully up to the front door and rang the bell. After a few seconds of no-one answering, he stepped back from the door and looked up at the windows, trying to see if anyone was in. The curtains were all drawn, and if there were any lights on, he couldn’t see them.

Knowing that someone was always in, he leaned on the doorbell, letting it ring out continuously. Someone was bound to get annoyed enough to answer sooner or later. After about thirty seconds, he started rocking back and forth unevenly, pulsing the bell.

“What, Gary?” Noodle demanded as he finally pulled the door open.

Gary jumped sharply away from the bell and nearly fell off the step.

“Do you got anything?” he asked as he tried to step inside, only to be blocked by Noodle taking up the entire doorway.

“That depends. Do you?” asked Noodle.

Gary shook his head slowly. “No, that’s why I’m asking you, isn’t it? If I had anything, I wouldn’t need to ask you, because I’d already have it.”

Noodle inhaled deeply and tried to shut the door, but Gary’s foot was in the way. He glared across the threshold at Gary for a long, uncomfortable moment, but utterly failed to get his hint across.

“Oh, come on. You know I’m good for it,” Gary said finally.

“No, Gary. You’re not,” Noodle said. “You’re never good for it. Cash in hand, or nothing at all. I’m sick of going through this bullshit with you.”

Gary scratched his ear and frowned. “Just a little bit of puff,” he said. “Something. Anything. Come on, man. Don’t be like this.”

Noodle shoved Gary hard, but Gary was relentless, already blocking the door again before it could be slammed in his face.

“Piss off, Gary,” Noodle said.

“Why do you gotta be like this, man?” Gary complained. “What’s your problem? You used to be cool.”

“All right,” said Noodle, crossing his arms over his chest.

Gary’s face immediately lit up. “Really?” he asked. He tried to push his way back inside again, but Noodle pushed him back again.

“Yeah, it’s yours. Whatever you want.” Noodle finally stepped out of the way, and Gary took the invitation and rushed inside.

“You just gotta give me ten minutes upstairs,” Noodle said.

“Doing what?” asked Gary curiously.

Noodle said nothing, staring at Gary expectantly. The longer he was quiet, the more confused Gary became. And then the ultimatum struck him like a slap to the face and he reeled backwards.

“Fuck off,” he said, stalking back through the door. “I’m not that desperate yet.”

“See you next week, then?” Noodle called after him with a leering grin.

Gary held both hands above his head, flipping Noodle off as he walked down the path to the road. He could probably get something from one of his housemates anyway.

He walked home, kicking small stones across the pavement. Was it really so unreasonable to expect his friend to front him a bit of weed? It wasn’t like he never paid anyone back. He paid people back. Eventually. He’d have to just pick up his last cheque the next morning and use that.

This wasn’t the first time he’d been completely skint. He’d get by.

The squat was an old house, surrounded by other old houses, forgotten by the council and ignored by everyone else. Gary stalked up to the door, reaching for his keys and failing to find them. He quickly dug through his trouser pockets, finding nothing but pocket fluff and a receipt from a month before.

“Fuck,” he muttered, moving on to check his coat pockets. He moved through them rapidly, again finding nothing but trash, which he dropped onto the step. “Fuck, fuck.”

He checked each of his pockets once more before giving up and crouching down before the mail slot on the door. Peering through it, he couldn’t see any sign of life inside.

“Hullo,” he called anyway. “Could someone let me in, please? I’ve forgotten my keys! It’s Gary!”

He was almost to the point of trying to find an open window to crawl through when he heard someone walking down the stairs. He couldn’t tell who it was through the mail slot, but he stood up so they could answer the door.

“What’s the password?” someone asked through the door.

Gary shook his head, confused. “I don’t know. What is it?”

He could hear mumbling on the other side before the door was opened, revealing Josh, wearing nothing but his underwear.

“Why don’t you have your key?” he asked.

Gary shrugged as he stepped inside. “Since when do we have a password?” he asked. He wandered over to the sofa and fell down onto it, making it creak ominously. “You haven’t got anything, do you?”

Josh made his way back up the stairs. “No,” he said tiredly.

Gary frowned. “Oh.”

He got up and walked into the kitchen. The counters were piled with dirty dishes and trash, as usual, and as usual, Gary left it for someone else to deal with. He banged through the kitchen, opening cupboards and checking the fridge several times. His search brought up little more than half a bottle of sour apple vodka and three half-empty bottles of beer.

Gary sneered at the lot of it and took the vodka back out to the living room. Someone seriously needed to make a trip to the off-license, and sooner rather than later. Gary would have done it himself, if not for the empty state of his wallet. He shrugged out of his coat, tossing it onto a nearby chair, and sank down into the sofa again. Taking a drink of the vodka, straight from the bottle, he looked round the room and idly wondered where everyone was. It was rather early in the day yet, and everyone else he lived with was in their twenties — always busy with something or another. Even the ones who didn’t have jobs managed to find things to do outside of the house.

When Gary was their age, he spent most of his time partying, stopping only to sleep and work his part-time job at the garage. But it never did get better than that night. The highs were never quite as high; the nights never quite as as long. And then Andy rolled that car, and it was almost like the partying stopped altogether. Suddenly, none of the lads wanted anything to do with him. Even Andy stopped talking to him after that.

He was the king. It wasn’t fair.

He was trying to find the bottom of the bottle when the front door opened. Gary looked up and felt his mood brighten just that little extra bit at the sight of Lacey in the doorway. They’d been dating since Gary moved into the squat with her, but it was an open sort of relationship. They both saw other people on the side. Well, shagged. But they were definitely a couple.

“Who the fuck let you in here?” Lacey demanded. “Don’t you ever take a hint and leave?”

Gary squinted up at her, trying to keep her from blurring around the edges. “What hint?” he asked.

Lacey slammed the door and stomped across the room to the stairs. “How did you get in?” she repeated

“Josh let me in. I forgot my keys,” Gary said.

Lacey buried her face in her hands and screamed. Gary jumped in his seat, and upstairs, Josh’s door opened slowly.

“Is everything all right?” Josh called out.

“No it isn’t fucking all right!” Lacey shouted at him, stomping up the steps. “I took his keys so you fuckers wouldn’t let him in!”

“Hey, that’s a bit harsh!” Gary called after her. He didn’t get up from his seat, electing instead to finish off the vodka first. He didn’t exactly like sour apple, but it was vodka and it would get him very, very drunk.

He could hear Lacey slamming around upstairs, but figured she must have had a bad day at work. Maybe she got sacked as well. After several minutes of muffled shouting and banging around, Lacey stomped back down the stairs with an armful of Gary’s things. When she reached the half-way mark, she threw everything at him, one by one. Gary ducked out of the way of a large, glass ash tray, only to catch a CD to the side of his head.

“Ow, hey!” he he said, picking up the CD. “Careful, you’ll scratch it!”

“Get out,” Lacey snapped.

Gary got up and dusted off the CD — a burnt copy of Depeche Mode’s Exciter — with his shirt. “Why don’t I stay down here tonight? You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Lacey took off one of her own shoes and threw it at him with a shriek before retreating back upstairs to their bedroom. Glaring indignantly at the spot where Lacey had stood, Gary stood up and walked over to the stereo. He put the CD into the tray and put it on repeat before going back out to the kitchen. With any luck, the half-drank bottles of beer wouldn’t be too completely vile to finish. He went back out to the kitchen to try his luck again, in case he’d missed anything useful the first time around. The only thing he found this time, other than the half-drank beers, was an unopened box of Frosties. He pulled it from the cupboard, trying to open the top with his fingernail. Each time, he’d manage to just barely get his nail under the top flap before losing what little grip he had. He kept trying, even as Lacey pounded back down the stairs.

“I’m going out,” she declared. “You’d better be gone before I get back.”

Gary scowled at the Frosties box that refused to open, ignoring the slam of the front door. The glue holding it shut refused to yield. He tried again and again to open the box, succeeding only in jamming thin cardboard under his nail a bit too hard.

“Fucking fuck it,” he hissed. “Fuck!”

Gary grabbed a large carving knife from the worktop and stabbed it through the top of the box, jerking it this way and that. Even then, it didn’t do much to actually open the box, so Gary stabbed into it again, and again, and again, until the box was shredded and Frosties covered the floor around him. At some point, Gary had started crying, hot tears running down his face. He tried to dry himself with the hem of his shirt as he threw what was left of the box across the kitchen.

He sobbed loudly as he slid down the front of the fridge to the floor. He had no idea what had happened to himself, but somehow, when he wasn’t looking, he’d gone from king of the world to a pathetic fuck-up wreck. He still held the knife in his hand, and he looked down at it through the blur of tears in his eyes. It was a comfortable weight in his hand, with a solid wood handle and a heavy, sturdy blade. Good for cutting things.

Gary hardly even thought about what he did next. It was just the right thing to do — the only thing to do. The track on the stereo changed, cycling at random and landing on the ninth track of the album, but Gary didn’t even hear it.

He thought it would hurt to push the blade through his skin, and it did, but not enough to make him want to stop. More than the pain, Gary felt the cold from the steel. The first cut he made was quick and deep, across his left wrist. Blood ran out over his arm, pooling on the floor around him as he made a second cut, and then a third, criss-crossing them over one another. His cuts became more frantic as his vision greyed around the edges, making everything seem like it was in a fog. But there was release in it as well. Release in the knowledge that everything would be over soon, and he wouldn’t have to worry about any of it ever again. He switched the knife to his other hand, his fingers numb and trembling, making the knife difficult to hold. The last cut he made trailed down his right arm at an awkward angle. He lost consciousness before he even dropped the knife.

Luckily, in her haste, Lacey had forgotten her handbag.

—

It was dark out when Gary awoke.

It was dark outside, but the room was lit well enough to read by, and Gary was confused. Waking up was enough to confuse him at all, but the room he found himself in only confused him more. It wasn’t a room he recognised. And more than that, Gary was certain that he’d killed himself. His memory was hazy, but those memories were quite vivid.

He started to sit up, but stopped when he felt the pull against his skin. He looked down at his arms, finding them both bandaged, with a thin tube coming out of the crook of his left elbow. Gary didn’t recognise the room, but he knew where he was. He’d woken to find himself in similar rooms before. But this was different. This wasn’t an overdose or too much drinking. This was yet another thing he failed to do. He was such a fuck-up, he couldn’t even kill himself properly. It came crashing down on him so suddenly, he hardly had the time to brace for it. With his face buried in his hands, Gary rolled over onto his side and sobbed into the thin hospital pillow, his entire body heaving and wracking. How badly did he have to fuck up in order to fail to do the thing most people set out to avoid on a daily basis? It shouldn’t have been that hard, and yet try though he might, Gary couldn’t do it.

It seemed there were quite a lot of things Gary King couldn’t do.


End file.
